


The Things We Do for Our Best Friend

by Ash_and_Ember



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Behind the scenes of the pants song, Oneshot, Sad Michael, but it has a happy ending, stoned Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 18:50:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12966090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_and_Ember/pseuds/Ash_and_Ember
Summary: I had four hours to kill between rehearsals, and this just sort of happened. Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are my own.Comments and kudos appreciated!





	The Things We Do for Our Best Friend

“Card you got me for the birthday no one else remembered? Shred.” Michael tossed the card into the ever growing pile at his feet. After twelve years of friendship with Jeremy, he had a lot of things to document it. Birthday cards, concert tickets, pictures of them together on the first days of school throughout the years, a fake award Jeremy made in third grade that read “Best best friend” and so much more. After the Halloween party, Michael didn’t want any of it anymore.

Taking another hit off the joint he help limply in his left hand, he swallowed back the tears that had been threatening to overflow since the party. That night was the single worst night of his life. It was a fairly impressive achievement, considering the yeas of bullying, and that time he got lost on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls without the rest of his family, but with a nasty case of food poisoning. 

He couldn’t fully remember how he had gotten home from Jake’s party that night. When his panic attack had run its course, he was still shaken and unsteady. The familiarity of driving his car had helped calm him down more, but he was very far from anything resembling good. His mind and body had been operating as separate entities. His body went through the motions of taking him home, but his mind remained blank. 

Despite seeing the emergency vehicles go screaming past him that night, Michael didn’t know what Rich had done until Monday at school. The rumors were flying all around him. Each had a scrap of truth hidden inside, but most were outrageous hyperbole and lies. Of course Rich didn’t flee to Bombay. Most people had left the party at that point, but everyone apparently had seen Rich start the fire, or had made a dramatic escape from the house. Michael hadn’t been there, but his dreams would be full of flickering flames and smoke that filled his lungs. 

Since then, he had moved between school, his basement, and his bedroom, not interacting with the world. It was if he had become a ghost. He spent most of his free time getting stoned in his basement. Alone. Just like everyone at school expected him to do. 

Jeremy hadn’t reached out to him at all. Michael expected silence, but it still hurt. No phone calls, texts, dramatic Say Anything moments, or even a normal conversation in school. Sometimes Michael thought Jeremy couldn’t even see him. They had stopped existing in each other’s worlds. 

He was knocked out of his thoughts by a knocking at the front door. His traitorous heart lifted, thinking maybe he had brought Jeremy here with the power of his thought. The rest of him quashed that thought, and replaced it with “please don’t be Jehovah’s Witnesses”. He carefully extinguished the joint and placed it aside. Slowly, he went upstairs. He didn’t really want to answer the door. Whoever it was, they knocked again, more insistently. Michael opened the door the reveal not Jeremy, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, but Jeremy’s dad. 

“Mr Heere?” he asked in confusion. “What are you doing… here?” He couldn’t stop the small snort of a laugh from escaping. He knew Jeremy hated the jokes about his name, but he was a few steps away from sober and couldn’t help himself. “And what are you wearing?”

Mr. Heere, clad only in a t-shirt, a bathrobe, and leggings, pushed past him and into the house. “Long underwear, but that’s not important right now. Listen to me: do you love Jeremy?”

“Uh, what?” Michael’s brain took too long to process the question. Jeremy and love being spoken about in the same sentence was not something he could handle in the best of circumstances, and certainly not when he was hovering halfway between sober and stoned. 

“Do you love him?”

His mind blanked, and reverted to waxing philosophically. “What kind of love do you mean, Mr. Heere? There are several different variations. The ancient Greeks had words for all of them. Do you speak of philia, which is deep love between friends? That could be it, considering my long friendship with your son. Or perhaps you refer to pragma, longstanding love. Friendship that turns into something more. It is between two people who know more about the other than they know about themselves. Agape? That ons is an unconditional love for everyone. Puppies have agape. You really need to be more specific?”

Mr. Heere paused for a moment before responding. “I… I don’t know what kind of love I was asking about. Does it really matter though? You can feel multiple kinds of love for the same person, and one isn’t necessarily more important than the other. Do you love Jeremy in an capacity? Or at least give half a care for his well being?”

“Yes,” Michael whispered.

Emboldened by his positive response, Mr. Heere moved forward, grasping Michael by thou shoulders. “I need you to help me help him. Jeremy won’t listen to me, and you know him better than anyone else.”

Michael twisted out from his grasp, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Jeremy and I…. We aren’t friends anymore.”

“Listen, I know he’s been a little shit for the past few months. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with him, but we have to at least try to help him.”

Michael stared down at the floor, thinking before he responded. “If I reach out to Jeremy, you have to do something. You have to buy pants, and wear them. There’s a Kohls down the street, I’m not doing anything until you get a pair. Jeans, khaki… even leather. Just get something.” Michael sat down on the floor right where he had been standing. 

“You drive a hard bargain, son. I’ll be back, and when I get back, you had better be wearing real clothes yourself. No more onesie, and do something besides sitting around burning incense. You can keep the socks. The ferns are snazzy.”

Michael stared after him, and then found himself staring at the closed front door. Burning incense? And ferns on his socks? He decided right then that he needed to change his clothes, and never wear those socks again. Or at least never in front of Mr. Heere. 

Given a purpose, he pushed off the floor, and took the stairs up to his room two at a time. He grabbed clean socks and underwear, a faded Star Trek shirt, his hoodie, and his phone. He threw his clothes onto the bathroom floor without much care, and put his phone on the counter with a little bit more care. He turned the water on as hot as it could be, and stepped into the shower as Lady Gaga blasted from his phone. 

The water pounded his head, washing away what felt like weeks of dirt and sadness. For the first time in weeks, he had a definite purpose. Instead of aimlessly drifting through the world, Michael was here. Fully, totally, completely there in his shower. 

He tried to think of what he would do about Jeremy. His mind was still clouded, but thought were becoming clearer. Michael remembered there was a performance of the play tonight; he could find Jeremy there. He could use the run time of the show to think of a good way to get Jeremy alone, and then talk to him afterwards. 

Even if Jeremy didn’t talk to him, or even see him, Michael was going to get rid of the SQUIP. He had done his research and his shopping; he stash of Mountain Dew Red in mini-fridge in his yard. It would be impossible to fix their friendship while he still had that evil floppy disc controlling him. Michael didn’t have a clear plan for getting Jeremy alone, but figured he would think of something during the play itself. 

Although he longed to stay in the shower for a lot longer, Michael knew he had to get out now, or he would never go through with the plan. He turned off the water, shivering in the sudden cold. He wrapped his towel around his head as he got dressed and brushed his teeth. The leftover taste of the joint wasn’t so great now that he wasn’t high. 

He went back into his room to grab his backpack, the word “riends” still faintly visible. He threw one of his bottles of mountain dew red in there, along with a flashlight, a roll of duct tape, and the container of salt from the kitchen. He was going to be prepared for everything. Michael was putting on his shoes when his stomach forcefully reminded him that he had barely eaten all day. 

He was halfway through the sandwich when there was a knock at the door again. Once again, it was Mr. Heere. This time however, his lower half was gloriously clad in jeans. Michael pointed at him and said, “Pants.”

Mr. Heere pointed back at him and responded, “Pants.” This was inexplicably funny to the two of them, and they broke down in laughter. 

Michael finally was able to control his laughter and calm down. “Okay, a deal’s a deal. You bought pants, I’m going to save Jeremy.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Heere said quietly. He pulled Michael into brief hug. “You’re a good kid, Michael. Jeremy is lucky to have you.”

Michael didn’t know how to respond, but this seemed like a situation that didn’t require a response. He double-checked that he had everything in his bag, then went out to his car. He was still pissed at Jeremy, and probably would be for a while yet. Whatever happened tonight, Michael knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done. If they kept ignoring each other, and if Jeremy never got rid of the SQUIP, the divide between them would be too large to cross. He loved Jeremy. It didn’t matter what kind of love, Michael would go to the ends of the Earth for his friend. Tonight, the end of the Earth was in a high school auditorium in New Jersey.

**Author's Note:**

> I had four hours to kill between rehearsals, and this just sort of happened. Un-beta'd, so all mistakes are my own.  
> Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
